Maybe not, but you did ask if they thought it would be worth going to jail--maybe they were thinking historically, and thought they were already there (read: people who do crimes of that sort aren't usually thinking about consequences )

Originally Posted by Squall7

Personally, I think the girls would probably be mentally ill in some way.

I tend to agree. Not necessarily in an inevitable way though--perhaps trauma or pressure-induced. But definitely unstable in some way.

Murderers especially, they ended the life of another, therefore their life should end.

If that was to happen there would be quite a few innocent people murdered because they got the wrong guy. If you look at the USA and their death penalty there have been quite a few people who have been wrongly accused and put to death.

"As of March 2005, 119 innocent people have been released from death rows across the country since 1973 (Northwestern University, DP Information Center). Researchers Radelet and Bedau found 23 cases where innocent people were executed since 1900 (In Spite of Innocence, Northeastern University Press, 1992)."

"As of March 2005, 119 innocent people have been released from death rows across the country since 1973 (Northwestern University, DP Information Center). Researchers Radelet and Bedau found 23 cases where innocent people were executed since 1900 (In Spite of Innocence, Northeastern University Press, 1992)."

Sources in text.

As to 119, that's the system working. Further, because of the extensive structural protections in the system, it is possible to be released from a conviction without being innocent--it's called getting off on a technicality.

"Defendants are acquitted for many reasons, the least likely being innocence. A defendant may be acquitted even though almost every member of the jury is satisfied of his guilt if even one juror harbors a lingering doubt. A defendant may be acquitted if critical evidence of his guilt is inadmissible because the police violated the Constitution in obtaining the evidence by unlawful search or coercive interrogation . . . More remarkable is the spectacle of jury acquittal because the jury sympathizes with the defendant even though guilt clearly has been proven by the evidence according to the law set forth in the judge's instructions .” Schwartz, "Innocence"-A Dialogue with Professor Sundby, 41 Hast. L.J. 153, 154-155 (1989) cited in Bedau & Radelet, 1998 Law & Contemporary Problems 105, 106 fn. 9.

Source in quote.

Further, as to the supposed 23 innocents put to death, the study you cite was poorly done.

The most significant study conducted to evaluate the evidence of the "innocent executed" is the Bedau-Radelet Study ("Miscarriages of Justice in Potentially Capital Cases," 40, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/87). The study concluded that 23 innocent persons had been executed since 1900. However, the study's methodology was so flawed that at least 12 of those cases had no evidence of innocence and substantial evidence of guilt. Bedau & Radelet, both opponents, "consistently presented incomplete and misleading accounts of the evidence." (Markman, Stephen J. & Cassell, Paul G., "Protecting the Innocent: A Response to the Bedau-Radelet Study" 41, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/88). The remaining 11 cases represent 0.14% of the 7,800 executions which have taken place since 1900. And, there is, in fact, no proof that those 11 executed were innocent. In addition, the "innocents executed" group was extracted from a Bedau & Radelet imagined pool of 350 persons who were, supposedly, wrongly convicted of capital or "potentially" capital crimes. Not only were they at least 50% in error with their 23 "innocents executed" claim, but 211 of those 350 cases, or 60%, were not sentenced to death. Bedau and Radelet already knew that plea bargains, the juries, the evidence, the prosecutors, judicial review and/or the legal statutes had put these crimes in the "no capital punishment" category. Indeed, their claims of innocence, regarding the remaining 139 of those 350 cases, should be suspect, given this study’s poor level of accuracy. Calling their work misleading hardly does this "academic" study justice. Had a high school student presented such a report, where 50-60% of the material was either false or misleading, a grade of F would be a likely result.

Sources in quote.

And as a result of the poor scholarship, the authors themselves have since backed away from the actual claim

Bedau and Radelet, the authors of that study, conceded - in 1988 - that neither they nor any previous researchers have proved that any of those executed was innocent: "We agree with our critics that we have not proved these executed defendants to be innocent; we never claimed that we had." (41, 1 Stanford Law Review, 11/1988).